I am looking at upgrading my road bike soon. I race locally in road races and crits, and would prefer something with a full carbon frame and Dura Ace groupset.

My local bike shop currently has the 2011 Giant TCR Advanced SL 1 on run out for $3600, along with the 2012 model for $4000.

The 2012 model has the Overdrive 2 steerer (thicker and supposedly stiffer front end, allegedly offering better steering and handling etc.), Giant's Ridesense speed/cadence sensor and compatibility to upgrade to Di2 later if so desired. The frame is also supposedly slightly lighter than the 2011 model, or so I'm told.

The 2011 model, however, comes with Dura-Ace 7900 C24 clinchers, which are seemingly considerably better than the Giant P-SLR1 wheels fitted to the 2012 model. It does not have RideSense, and although Di2 can probably be added, it is a lot trickier to do so in terms of locating the battery etc. This doesn't worry me as I'm probably unlikely to consider adding Di2 as mechanical Dura-Ace should be sufficient for my needs.

I plan to eventually upgrade the wheelset to a set of 50mm clinchers for racing regardless of which bike I purchase, but should I go with the 2011 model seeing though it's slightly cheaper and comes with better spec wheels, or am I better off paying slightly more for the 2012 model with it's revised frame, Ridesense sensor and steerer?

I contacted my local bike shop earlier today to try and haggle a deal for either bike.

Basically they advised me that they would be willing to drop the price of the 2011 model to $3300.

They refused to drop the price on the 2012 model as it has already been reduced quite considerably to $4000. I asked about the possibility of swapping the stock Giant wheels for Dura-Ace 7900 C24 clinchers (as per the 2011 model) and was told that this would cost an extra $350, bringing the revised total to $4350.

I didn't bother asking about extras such as free servicing, bike fit and pedals and shoes etc, as it was close to closing time and I was advised that this can all be negotiated at the time of purchase once I've decided which model to proceed with.

Just call giant dealers around you locally and ask them to do the same price...

PSLR-1's are great depending on your weight. I personally love them, they are light, strong and made in conjunction with DT Swiss and certainly comparable with dura ace c24's.. I rode a set for about 5000km before getting injured.

rabobank89 wrote:Is DA9000 that much better than 7900? Everyone keeps raving about it..

The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...

Oh, I see. And most bikes go up to ten?

Exactly.

Does that mean it's faster? Is it any faster?

Well, it's one faster, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be riding at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your bike. Where can you go from there? Where?

I don't know.

Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Put it up to eleven.

Eleven. Exactly. One faster.

Why don't you just make ten faster and make ten be the top number and make that a little faster?

Mate, I couldn't care less about 11, 7, 9, 10 speed bikes. When i started riding 10 speed was the norm and it was what was available at my price point. I serverly crashed my 10 speed bike and my lovely insurance company decided to cover my loss.

The equivalent Giant bike happened to be the TCR Advanced SL1 with 11 speed Dura Ace 9000. Is the DA 9000 better than DA7900?? Based on the 220kms I covered on the weekend, my early impressions are yes, yes in every single way.

Is this because of the "extra" gear? NO, I put it down to the crisper shifting and better ergos (will be even better when i put my 3T shallow drop bars on it) and hot damn it looks fantastic in the flesh.

I am a reasonably heavy guy and struggle on the steeper pinches (8%+), the stock bike comes with 11-25 cassette, ideally I would like a 12-28, which is the old 10 speed 12-25 with the 28 bailout gear. More than happy to forgo the 11 for the 28, 53*12 is more than enough for my top end efforts. So when I do purchase a 12-28, in my opinion 11 speeds are better.

Basically I couldn't actually decipher the point you were trying to make, so I assumed you were having a blast at 11 speed transmissions.

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